April is Earthquake Preparedness Month. Oregon State University scientists estimate a 40 percent chance of an 8.0 or larger earthquake in the Coos Bay, Oregon area during the next 50 years. Do you have an emergency kit? Visit the Red Cross website below for a list of items to include in one. Prepare at least one week of food, water, and medications in your disaster kit. And don't forget favorite toys and books for the kids!

Living in the pacific northwest gives us some familiarity with earthquakes. You've probably felt one or two right? But what about those large and disastrous quakes, like the one that hit Japan a couple years ago, or the one that created the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004? We're lucky that most quakes in Oregon are fairly small-scale. California bears the brunt of earthquake-related damage on the west coast and even the Seattle region gets hit more often than Portland.